Imagine Macbeth crossed with Billy Liar relocated to the land of opportunity and dreams, and you might end up with Patricia Highsmith's antihero Tom Ripley, a man who is both fascinating and repellent in equal measure. He is entirely self-made. Dazzled by Ripley's surface shine, oblivious to the conflicting lies that drop from his silver tongue, and seeing only what they want to see, patrician American millionaires the Greenleafs send Ripley to Europe in search of their errant water-colourist son, Richard. This is like inviting Cruella de Vil to dog-sit. Ripley proves fatal to almost everyone he meets, but, like Macbeth, he is primarily interesting for the way that he murders the self.

It should all make for a rich evening of theatre, but it often feels as if there is a tension in Phyllis Nagy's hugely intelligent adaptation between the mechanics of murder and the metaphysics. In a long evening, things buck up enormously after the bloody deed itself, as if both writer and director are relieved to have it out of the way and can get down to the real business of exploring the idea of murder as an act of love, and Ripley's metamorphoses. There are some terrific moments where the homoerotic subtext is made delicately apparent, such as when the dead Richard reappears at the feast, slightly puzzled to discover that he can't join in.

But just as Ripley's internal life and struggle are always far more interesting than his glib lies and painted-on charm, so director Raz Shaw's staging is least appealing in its surface shine, of which there's quite a lot. The production certainly has a stylish swagger (although, on occasion, it's technically clunky). It's atmospheric, too, and always slightly smoggy – as if the fires of hell are permanently smouldering somewhere near by. But it often feels as if Shaw himself has been seduced by slickness. The show actually needs to be far less flash and a great deal more fluid to do justice to such a complex story about acquiring material possessions, but also the act of possession itself.

The struggle between Michelle Ryan's Marge and Kyle Soller's fine Tom Ripley is for ownership of not just Richard's heart, but also his mind and body; Ripley's assumption of Richard's identity is like a two-way haunting. Shaw's production often comes close to excavating this territory, but, like the Greenleafs who fail to see the truth of Ripley, seems ultimately misled by its surface dazzle.